Harnessing the Innovation System to Support Efficient Upstream Oil and Gas Wellsite Assessment, Remediation and Reclamation

The goal of the workshop was to create a forum to identify high priority solutions that could be championed through the province’s research and innovation system. The objectives of the workshop were to:

1. 1. Articulate challenges related to the ARR process and how they could be addressed to more efficiently move sites toward full reclamation (closure).
   2. Identify and harness the expertise of ARR stakeholders to identify potential innovative solutions to high priority challenges.
   3. Foster collaboration amongst stakeholders to address system-wide challenges.

The event brought together a diverse group of 45 stakeholders including 8 members of the upstream oil and gas industry, 6 from the provincial government, 15 environmental consultants, 4 environmental service providers, 5 academics and researchers, and 7 technology developers. Geographically there were participants from Alberta, British Columbia, Quebec, and New Brunswick; several with international experience. The interactive workshop sought to identify challenges and bottlenecks in the ARR process from various perspectives, with the goal of full reclamation and site closure.

Key challenges in various stages of the ARR process were identified. Participants noted many reasons that initial assessments are not undertaken, including a lack of incentive, a culture of avoidance, high or unpredictable costs associated with completing activities, difficulty prioritizing sites and activities, and risk that expensive remediation may be required based on what was found during assessments. Through the Phase 1 and 2 stages, low budgets leading to poor quality information; missing records; site access challenges (seasonal); data and risk assessment complexity; excessive sample analysis requirements; time and cost of completing reporting; and, turnaround time required for reporting resulting in delays, were identified as challenges. Where remediation was required, limited options for soil remediation; high cost; unsustainable practices and greenhouse gas emissions due to trucking; and, challenges in meeting remediation guidelines, were all flagged. Challenges at the reclamation stage were identified as stringent regulatory requirements (select cases); need for repeat justification for non-routine applications; ongoing weed control; and, costs of ongoing monitoring.

Recommendations to address these challenges were focused on making it easier to begin and carry out all stages of the ARR process to lower costs, shorten timelines, increase sustainability, and reduce the risk of not achieving closure requirements. Specifically, there were recommendations to focus efforts on sites with higher risk, with streamlined processes to justify minor exceedances or reclamation deficiencies; to enhance  planning  and  intra-  and  inter-company  collaboration  opportunities;  to  facilitate long-term

strategy; to align corporate budget cycles to allow efficient ARR planning; to develop cost-effective remediation options; to shorten reclamation time frames for faster return on investment; and in some cases, to develop more realistic guidelines or a streamlined process for assessing risk on a site-specific basis.

At the regulatory level, changes are ongoing to support and enhance efficiency of various aspects of the ARR process. Therefore, while initiatives can be championed through the province’s research and innovation system, government, industry and private sector collaboration are required for success. The following recommendations were developed to guide potential technology and process innovation to address regional, field-scale and site-level challenges.

At the regional or provincial level, enhanced Strategic Planning could be supported through a digital platform with up-to-date data for informed decision making and prioritizing areas for closure in the province. It is anticipated that this platform would allow the ability to analyze various scenarios, and would therefore include financial, time, sustainability and logistics data. Recommendations for next steps in the Strategic Planning category are:

1. 1. 1. Define User Needs: Identify potential users of such a platform, and determine, in collaboration, what information, business processes, and data types need to be gathered, processed and tracked.
      2. Technology Scan: Determine whether technologies exist that could be adapted to meet the needs identified in the user needs assessment.
      3. Pilot: Evaluate platform functionality to support effective decision making and plan multi-year closure programs, and ability to interface with other existing systems (e.g., Alberta Energy Regulator’s OneStop system).

Systems and technologies for Optimizing Operational Logistics were recommended to facilitate intra- and inter-company collaboration, make best use of equipment and staff to support the environmental services sector, and to coordinate resource use. Centralized soil treatment facilities and/or soil banks were identified as a key potential innovation in this category, as were opportunities in business innovation to support licensees. Recommendations for next steps in the Strategic Planning category are:

1. Technology Scan or Challenge: Conduct a technology scan to determine what available technologies are available to facilitate process streamlining and collaboration, or develop a defined challenge for technology developers.
2. Pilot: Conduct a retrospective pilot with available operations data from industry member(s) or associations to validate potential efficiencies through a collaboration platform or other process optimization tool(s).
3. Business Case: Assemble and support a team to create a business case for one or more soil treatment facility or soil bank concepts.

Finally, Supporting Best Practices for Assessment, Remediation and Reclamation through a coordinated research and innovation program, tied in with regulatory enhancements, was recommended to more efficiently move sites through the ARR process. Recommended next steps related to Supporting Best Practices for Assessment, Remediation and Reclamation are:

1. Gap Analysis: Identify and prioritize research needs in support of effective ARR, including technology, science, and process optimization.
2. Review: Determine where information is currently housed on applied research or risk justification for taking various approaches to managing risk for contaminated sites. Explore the need for an information repository including case studies and peer reviewed best practices and identify a suitable organization to host and maintain such a repository, if a need is identified.